First Round Singles Complete at Kalamazoo 18s, 16s Begin Play Saturday; 12s and 14s Nationals Seeds and Draws; Brooksby Rolls on in Washington, McDonald Also Reaches Semifinals

©Colette Lewis 2021--

Kalamazoo MI--

After a lost year in 2020 due to the pandemic, the USTA Boys 18 and 16 National Championships resumed Friday with 96 first round matches in the 18s division at three sites in the Kalamazoo area: Loy Norrix High School, Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. The top 32 seeds received byes; they will take the court on Saturday, with top seed and defending champion Zachary Svajda scheduled to play at 11:30 a.m. at Stowe Stadium.

Rain, always a challenge at the start of a tournament, arrived around 3 p.m. and continued off and on the rest of the evening, but fortunately all singles matches were completed outdoors, as were a few first round doubles matches. With two rounds of doubles on the schedule for the 18s, it was a late night for some, although none of the 18s play until 11:30 on Saturday. Top seeds Ben Shelton and Bruno Kuzuhara and No. 2 seeds Sebastian Gornzy and Ethan Quinn have advanced to the third round on Sunday with straight-sets victories tonight.

Of the 32 No. 33 seeds in action on Friday, 28 of them reached the second round. The four unseeded players to take out No. 33 seeds are Luke Bollinger, who defeated Waleed Qadir 6-4, 6-3; Louis Cloud, who defeated Chad Miller 6-2, 4-6, 6-1; AJ Moore, who defeated Maxwell Sheldon 7-5, 6-3; and wild card Tauheed Browning, who defeated Hugo Hashimoto 7-6(5), 7-6(11). 

The first three matches were at Western Michigan, but I did get to see the last half of the second set of the Browning - Hashimoto match. With Hashimoto serving at 4-5 0-40 in the second set, Browning let those three match points slip away with unforced errors. In the subsequent tiebreaker, Browning failed to convert four more match points, but his serve ultimately made the difference as he was able to come up with unreturnable serves both on set points for Hashimoto and on the eighth, and final, match point. The two sets took nearly three hours to play, and by the end, a (relatively) large crowd, including many college coaches, had gathered around Court 4 as the drama escalated with every match point.

The first round of 16s singles is scheduled for Saturday morning, as well as the first round of 16s doubles for the top half of the draw.

Saturday's times can be found on the draws at ustaboys.com.  Links to live streaming for Stowe Courts 1, 2, and 3 can be accessed by the Live Stream Connect button on the home page.

The USTA G18s draw was released today, with their first round matches starting Sunday. In the 16s, No. 2 seed Tatum Evans advanced to the third round, but No. 3 seed Piper Charney and No. 4 seed Ariana Pursoo joined top seed Theadora Rabman, who lost in the second round yesterday, on the sidelines. 

Lisa Stone of Parenting Aces is providing coverage of the San Diego event, so make sure to check out her Instagram interviews from the tournament.

The draws are out for the 12s and 14s, with the list of the Top 16 seeds below. The G12s begin on Sunday; draws are not yet posted.

G12s: 

1. Isabelle DeLuccia
2. Sena Yoon
3. Meghan Rowley
4. Anita Tu
5. Nancy Lee
6. Ellery Mendell
7. Sydney Barnhart
8. Harper Stone
9. Filipa Delgado
10. Abigail Gordon
11. Carrie Ann Hoo
12. Addy Rogin
13. Bela Martinez
14. Reagain Levine
15. Julietta Pareja
16. Thara Gowda
 

B12s:
1. Jack Secord
2. Navneet Raghuram
3. Colin McPeek
4. Jordan Lee
5. Teodor Davidov
6. Ryan Cozad
7. Izyan Ahmad
8. Elliott Awomoyi
9. Michael Antonius
10. Gadin Arun
11. Sean Grosman
12. Robert McAdoo
13. Erik Schinnerer
14. Anish Poojari
15. Mateo Pouso
16. Joseph Nau

G14s:
1. Katie Rolls
2. Claire Hill
3. Claire An
4. Riley Crowder
5. Sydney Jara
6. Alanis Hamilton
7. Capucine Jauffret
8. Addison Bowman
9. Laima Frosch
10. Kenzie Nguyen
11. Rachel Lee
12. Emerey Gross
13. Carolina Bohrer Martins
14. Elizabeth Ionescu
15. Aria Nina Abalos
16. Kaede Usui

B14s:
1. Braeden Gelletich
2. Nicholas Patrick
3. A Filer
4. Ronit Karki
5. Dominick Mosejczuk
6. Calvin Baierl
7. Evan Sharygin
8. Maxwell Exsted
9. Zachary Cohen
10. Avner Wong
11. Benjamin Willwerth
12. Jon Gamble
13. Albert Mackey
14. Jackson Hinderberger
15. Roman Sancilio
16. Aarav Patel

Much of the conversation at Stowe Stadium today centered on the stunning summers of 2018 Kalamazoo 18s finalists Brandon Nakashima and Jenson Brooksby. Brooksby, who earned the US Open wild card that year, played John Millman of Australia in the first round, losing 6-4, 6-2, 6-0. The 20-year-old Californian got his revenge today at the ATP 500 Citi Open in Washington DC, defeating Millman 6-1, 6-2 to reach the semifinals. Brooksby, who will move into the ATP Top 100 next week, faces No. 5 seed Jannik Sinner of Italy Saturday. Mackenzie McDonald advanced to his second career ATP final tonight, with the 2016 NCAA champion at UCLA defeating Denis Kudla 6-3, 6-2. McDonald's semifinal opponent is Kei Nishikori of Japan.

Katrina Scott was unable to complete her quarterfinal match at the WTA 125 in Concord Massachusetts today. She trailed Magdalena Frech of Poland 6-4, 1-1 when played was suspended until Saturday at noon. Scott is scheduled to play her first match at the USTA Girls 18s Nationals Monday.  Madison Brengle[3] has reached the semifinals, where she will play No. 8 seed Renata Zarazua of Mexico.